


La Gradina

by Sevynlira



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arachnophobia, Dreams, Falling In Love, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Nightmares, Sculpture, Souls, Surprise Kissing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:42:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25395568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sevynlira/pseuds/Sevynlira
Summary: In this retelling of the Pygmalian myth, Aziraphale is a lonely sculptor who dreams of a beautiful winged being. He spends every waking moment crafting a replica of the face he sees in his dreams. Will he realize his mistake before he loses his soul? Or will the kingdoms of hell prevail in the end?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

There are many souls that interest the darker realms. The realms of night and those beneath the earth. Some of them are mad, some are quite ordinary, and some of them shine out from this little planet like beacons reaching across the eons. Those pure of heart and flinty of spirit who would stand steadfast until the end. The incorruptible, the implacable. They stand like pillars against the driving wind of fate or circumstance and thwart the effort of those who would tempt them away. And some souls. Some souls hang in a balance. They step toward a precipice that they cannot know about. They blindly push forward with the best intentions while the forces of good and evil both flinch to watch them stroll. They could go either way, you see. But if they harden and plant themselves firmly, they are decided for good or evil. These are the assignments left to the cleverest and best of their kind. The hordes of hell choose their champion to capture these lights for their dark Lord Lucifer.

One such soul turns fitfully upon his bed this night. It is a sweltering evening, with a humid hanging weight that has plastered the sheets to his hips. Aziraphale dreams, and his dreams are laced with the very first brush of demonic intent. Around him the wheel of night turns and hanging in the vasty stretch of the universe is a solitary figure. Pale. Alabaster pale, the draped figure hangs, floating serene among the stars. Crowning his head is an endless skein of flame red hair that spills and curves out into the darkness. He appears to be sleeping. Draped over his shoulders and spilling down to tangle between his legs is a simple white sheet. The one thigh exposed is slender and tapers to the angled turn of a bony knee. His feet seem to be just as graceful as the rest of him, curved to a resting point with no weight to press them flat. And there are wings! Great black arching wings that blot out the surrounding stars and glint with the rainbowed refraction of starlight.

There is little that can hold Aziraphale’s interest like the temptation of something beautiful before his eyes. And this is beautiful. All of the impulses that he might curb in the real world have little sway here in the realm of dreams. So without hesitation, he approaches this striking tableau with open interest. The face, it is imperfect. This somehow makes it shocking and hauntingly beautiful for its flaws. It is not the face of a soft youth with all the masculine pride of brow and shoulders. This face has grown into itself. It sits somewhere in the middle of life, with soft folded lines radiating from the edges of his eyes and the divot of frown lines bracketing the downturn of his lips. His skin, so pale and perfect from a distance instead proves itself to be scattered with pale freckles. Like stars. Strewn over the bridge of his nose. A nose that has set a tiny bit crooked in the frame of his face. 

A small sleeping sigh escapes those lips and it startles Aziraphale so badly that he almost pitches to full wakefulness. Oh! The small animate motion of breath has done something wonderful to that face. Alive. This perfect beauty is alive and at rest and serene in the night. Azriaphale catches the twitch of his fingers next, the twisting flex a response to some dreaming fancy. His fingers curved like twin flowers against the pink pale of his chest. He is naked beneath the sheet, one delicate curve of his backside is bare to the cosmos. Something that Aziraphale finds himself meticulously noting with an artist's eye before noticing his own detachment and being embarrassed too late to stop ogling. The artist has just decided to reach out and touch the sleeping figure when the dream fades and drifts from his mind like sand through a sieve.

Aziraphale wakes with an inexplicable warmth in the center of his chest and the itch to create. He is holding a graphite pencil before he even knows what he will draw and without a single intention, his fingers begin to shape a face. It is hauntingly familiar. Has he met this man somewhere? It is striking, this face. With closed eyes. He has never been one to leave the soul of a portrait so blank. Why has he drawn his eyes closed? It seems right though. As if his subject is sleeping. At peace. Great wings and a carpet of stars behind. A dream. It had been a dream! 

The relief at retrieving this fleeting fantasy and pinning it down has him in a cheerful state for the rest of the day. His thoughts keep fluttering back to the sketch and he keeps touching up the details. This. This deserves more than a sketch, he thinks. Checking his stores, he finds a hunk of pale clay and sets to work. He makes ten different reference pieces over the next few weeks. An arm, the edges of hips, the tip of that haughty chin. Every day he feels drawn closer and closer to realizing satisfaction in this piece. 

In his dreams, the sleeper remains suspended as always. Aziraphale by this time has attempted over and over to touch the edge of a jaw, the floating strand of hair. Only to be frustrated by waking or the ephemeral edges of this sleeping figure slipping through his fingers like smoke. He soothes his frustrations by rubbing his fingertips over the edge of the clay, tracing out the strong angles of that face. He has exhausted his own talent with clay and still his hands and eyes crave some satisfaction. 

Stone. He will sculpt. 

It must be done in marble. Like the ancients who lifted gods from implacable stone. Pale and perfect. He takes out a loan. He tracks the delivery with anxious frenzy. It takes weeks. 

Aziraphale has never felt like he quite fit in this world. He had been a dreamy little kid with not much interest in sport or the social antics of young people. He had been “born old” as his mother said. Fastidious in his mannerisms and quite queer, his childhood had been hounded by the incomprehensible notions of bullies. It was a great relief to escape their tiny kingdoms and to move on to the realms of art school. There. Finally. He had thrived. Being a little bit eccentric was certainly tolerated if not outright celebrated. Being a little bit soft and very obviously gay had done him no hardship among the playwrights and painters. His own little circle had blossomed into a full blown career. He was settled. Quite comfortably into the work of creating art. If not quite as comfortably into the realm of being human. 

There is a way of pushing aside the body and the heart and letting them lie neglected while one focuses on other matters. It can be for a myriad plethora of reasons too. Those who have reached a certain age, those who carry some disability of form or function who cannot live every moment present in the flesh. Those who have scars of love and loss and still reel and cringe from connection. Those who have been rejected wholesale from the arms of men. Aziraphale has none of those perfectly human reasons. He has some vague notion that his soul longs for connection. Some unpleasant feeling of loneliness that stalks the quiet moments when he forgets to wield his pencil like a sword at the gates of his regard. It just all seems too complicated. Too rife with potential for pain or rejection. He can’t quite get over the jeering voice of some childhood bully calling him “soft”. 

He does not know this, but this neglect and inattention has created a space. A small wedge of an opening to press an advantage. His creative talent and his way of seeing the world is in every way a true inborn light. His soul spins on the skin of the earth like a jewel. The aura of this natural light would tempt every type of besotted spirit to his side. The muse who dances with him every day and his companionate angels all preen with pride to serve in the basking heat of his kind heart. He is wholly himself. Never once considering if he should bend and scrape and try out all the modern vagrant fashions or trends. It is a liminal hint of the ringing steel of his identity. He will hold true to whatever form he finds in the heat of his middle age. Time is running out to set this stone where they will. And he has left this crack. A single hairline fracture right at the heart of himself. 

He has allowed his work to become everything to him. He neglects to find any other soul to raft his heart beside. He has no other to reach for in the night. And so his temptation was crafted. A companion. A light in the void of space. Flickering flames for hair and the slim twisting curve of naked hips and slender thighs. He is weak to beauty. Weak to connection. They will find their way into the crack. Plant their seed within the gates and bring forth the fruit of their work in time. Aziraphale’s soul will fall into the hands of hell. It’s only a matter of time.


	2. Chapter 2

The marble sits and mocks him for weeks before he dares to set the chisel against its face. It is always like this. Paralysing to approach that perfect blank and dare to set your mark upon it. He has every possible mock up and sketch and wireframe already done and there is nothing left to put it off. Every second that he stares at the marble, that white against a backdrop of stars flickers in the back of his mind and his hands itch with desire. 

So he sets to the work, first with heavy thick chisel and brute force. Knocking great chunks free and sweating in the late summer heat. And as often happens, he opens a dialogue with his subject. First, a greeting laced with swear words and dusty swipes of his palms over the rough tumbling corners of the stone. Mostly complaints and concerns about the direction of his work and general observations about the state of the marble. He can work for silent hours, only to feel some burst of an amusing thought that he shares with the silent room that won’t judge him for his dry wit. Slowly he feels that connection. Familiarity with the marble. The grain of it. The flow of it. 

Then it is time for la gradina. The claw. A wicked looking little tool used for scoring out the rough sketch and shape. It is an ancient tool. One used since Roman times. The time when marble art had reached its zenith. This is the tool that uncoils the first wild tossing stream of hair from the stone. There. Flinging out from the edge. There is the shape of him. 

That night, in his dreams, he reaches for the millionth time to touch the companion of his dreams. For the first time, his hands slide through a soft warm spiral of brilliant red hair. Oh! It is the strands that he had sculpted! Here. In this impossible space, the portion that he had freed from marble is real. It is warm and soft and so very alive. Oh. He feels the slip of tears falling on his cheeks as the silken strand wraps around his wrist. As if to say, here! I am here. With you.

He wakes with his fingers tangled in the sheets and his cheeks still wet with tears. He doesn’t bother shaving or making his tea before he is already down in his workshop with la gradina in hand.

He dares not rush his work with impatience. Going back to his references over and over. He wishes this careful work to be his very best. So he settles into the weeks and months of his labor. Slowly, he sweeps aside the obscuring rock from the shape of this singular beauty. 

This piece. This piece should be suspended. He cannot plant it on the earth. So he builds an arch. A curving massive iron gate that bends above the floating marble and hangs it suspended with titanium cable. There. The winged beauty floats with pointed toes. Face still shrouded in marble, the bend of arms and legs still begging refinement. The feathers are a nightmare. Every vein and shaft carefully picked out with his finest riffler. His hands and arms scream and bleed at the end of every day. 

Falling into bed exhausted, sometimes he is too tired to even visit the realm of dreams, but when he does, more and more of the sleeping figure has become real to his touch. Breath can now be felt against his fingertips if he presses them to the apple red curve of his lips. He still slumbers on, but the soft whisper of his draping cloth can now be heard with the shift of his hips and knees. And those wings. It was worth it. Every goddamn tedious minute of tracing those wings was worth it. He has dared to touch a fingertip along the curved shaft of one massive primary and the entire feather had shimmered beneath his finger with a golden wave of light. Those black wings ripple with red gold light with every touch. Like dipping his fingers into a golden pond. He wouldn’t be so bold as to grab the wings or risk anything more than the touch of his reverent fingertips. But oh, so beautiful!

He shares his days with the silent marble. All of the petty workings of human life. The aches of it and the joys. He talks about his thoughts. Shyly he ponders his strange dreams. He tosses frustrated questions about the origin of his nightly muse. One particularly happy day has him drinking a bottle of wine and waxing poetic about the state of the world to his frozen companion. The wings would suggest he is of course, inhuman. A sleeping angel. That is exactly what he looks like. The nickname sticks. Religion has never been any defining feature to the sculptor’s life, but he does begin to gather a little bit of lore and history concerning angels. Has anyone ever been visited by an angel that isn’t delivering any sort of message before? Not even aware of his presence even? Seemingly totally passive and at rest? It is only a pile of questions with no answers. 

As his work nears its end, he finds himself stalling. Going slower and slower. Lingering over the most tedious of details. It's not about perfection. It’s about being afraid that it will be the end of the dreams. What will happen when he takes that final polishing stroke? Will his angel fade away with his task finally done? Will he lose that connection?

But he can’t dawdle forever. He begins to fret and ask the marble angel if he will stay. If he will not leave him in the night. He insists that he doesn’t mind that his companion is still and dreaming in his cosmic bed. He doesn’t mind if his angel must stay out there resting in the slow turn of aeons among the scattered stars. Aziraphale's polishing hands work the marble to the fine translucence of skin while wishing he could scatter freckles over the back of his knuckles like they are in the kingdom of dreams.

On the final night before he is completely done, all of his angel breathes there in the starlight. Touchable and shining with his great shadowing wings and the endless spool of his bright hair floating among the stars. Aziraphale feels a great horrible well of loneliness yawning wide in the center of his chest. He knows without any doubt that this is the end of it. He will see his angel at rest no more. He will no longer trace a fingertip into the sweep of feathers and watch that golden light spark. He will no longer see the shining star of that pale pretty skin glinting against the void. His heart wells with despair at his loss.

Suddenly, he knows, in the way some things are known in dreams, they are not alone. There is some presence. Some other soul shares this dream. It's so startling that he shouts out in his sleep and twists with confusion to search the night. There. Striding toward him. Somehow walking across the distance of space in the inexplicable way of dreams. 

“Ah. There you are. Aziraphale.” the man says as he approaches. 

He is wearing a linen suit the shade of bleached bones and his face refuses to be remembered. Aziraphale tries for a few seconds before he gives up that notion and turns eyes away from the painful sight, back to the familiar aching beauty of his angel. 

“I wish I could wake him. I just want to thank him and say hello. Just see his eyes.” Aziraphale finds himself admitting to this total stranger without prompting. In reality he would be embarrassed at this admission, but here in the dream, he cannot be. 

“Well, perhaps I can be of some assistance.” The man offers.

“What!?” Aziraphale exclaims. “You can wake him?” 

“Oh. Not here. Of course. This is the dreaming.” The man points out unhelpfully, as if it will explain everything. “But, I could talk to him and perhaps he could inhabit the vessel you have made for him in your realm. He does seem quite impressed with your skill. He could waken there and live for a while. Few hundred years probably. How long does marble last?” 

“Oh! You know him?” Aziraphale asks with excitement. This stranger knows his angel. He suddenly has a million questions. “Oh, but. He knows my work?” Aziraphale can feel himself start to squirm with embarrassment, something he couldn’t manage even just minutes before. He is precariously close to waking up. 

“Of course.” The stranger asserts. “There is some connection between your souls. If you are spending so much time with him here. I’m sure he would visit you. It’s only a matter of making the necessary steps to invite him.” 

Aziraphale’s heart thunders in his throat. Oh! To have his statue come alive. To move and speak and spread his wings and share a glass of wine! Oh. What a dream! Oh what a marvel! “You have to tell me how!” He insists while reaching forward to grip the strangers arm with impatient fingers.

“Well, here in the outer realms, you cannot possibly invite somebody from the spheres without making some small sacrifice.” The stranger hedges as if reluctant to admit such a thing. 

This creates some pause. Suddenly Aziraphale has sensed the hint of danger.

The man in white quickly reassures him. “Oh, I need some small commission done in my name. Just a bit of your art made for me to specifications. I will give you the invitation to carve in the heel of your companion and it will be quite enough of a transaction to satisfy the fates. I am quite content to be the happy fellow who has introduced two of my friends. It will be my favor to you both.” He states with perfect sincerity.

Aziraphale wakes with the promise to carry out his new commission and the summoning sigil bright in his waking mind.


	3. Chapter 3

Bursting with joy, Aziraphale so carefully works the sigil into the raised heel of the frozen statue. There. His invitation awaits. Will his angel come alive? 

He had expected the statue to slowly warm and come awake in degrees. Instead, the thrashing flap of wings and one bony leg is flailing in the air as a string of loud cursing explodes from the dangling tangle of drapery and feathers. The problem is immediately apparent. The cables suspending the statue are now strangling and dogging the squirming man and the yards of drapery and wings isn’t helping the matter. Suddenly there is a click that sounds like snapping fingers and the naked angel is standing mostly upright while clutching a sheet around his waist. The cables have leapt away from the slender man by some miraculous means. And Oh. Aziraphale hadn’t taken the right amount of time to REALLY consider this.

His eyes. Those eyes are open! Aziraphale can only stare. He would have never imagined in a million years. Those golden slit pupils. The eyes like a serpent. Like cats. Inhuman and bright. He can’t think of a single word but just stands and gapes. 

The angel shivers one long shiver and raises his hand. A click of his fingers and suddenly a black sliver of cloth winds and stretches and covers. Tight black jeans. Soft dark grey shirt, waistcoat, black jacket. All in moments. He shakes his head and all those flowing locks tense and shorten and smooth until they just reach his shoulders. The wings have popped out of existence entirely. Standing before the sculptor is a tall thin familiar shape all in black. 

“FUCK!” the angel shouts. “Shit. shit. Shit. shit.” He exclaims while turning in a circle to orient himself in the room. “What the fuck did you promise him?” he demands while running those golden eyes over Aziraphale from head to foot. “Oh!” he says in soft surprise as he takes in the first look at the man who had sculpted every inch of his face. 

“J-just. A commission.” Aziraphale finally catches up to the conversation while the angel still seems to be studying him. 

“Show me!” He demands without any explanation or prelude. He scrabbles on the worktop for a scrap of paper and a pencil. Gestures for Aziraphale to illustrate.

“Well. It is this.” Aziraphale traces out the shape of the object. Falling into work mode, he describes the materials and the cost. “It’s rather cheap. It will only take me a few hours at most!” 

“Cheap he says!” the angel crows with disbelief. “Cheap! Aziraphale. I have spent the last eight months of my life trapped in marble in your realm and pinned to sleep by Arachnae in the world of dreams just to obtain THIS. For my master.” He growls the last with a sound of disgust.

“What are you talking about?” Aziraphale pleads while a sick feeling begins to spread in his gut.

“This.” The angel gestures to the drawing. “This is a portal. A gate. This particular gate has to have a human soul trapped in its heart to open. You have bargained it. If you craft this, it will have hooks in your soul. It WILL use you to power the thing.” 

“A portal to where?” the artist asks carefully, afraid the answer is not going to be good. 

“A gate to hell, Aziraphale. You have bargained your soul to open a gate of hell for my master.” 

Aziraphale feels the world start to spin and his face takes on a pallor. “And. Who is your master?”   
Those golden eyes pin his own and the angel spreads his palms across the desk while leaning forward to make his point completely clear “In your world his name is Lucifer. Satan. The Devil. Fallen angel. You might have heard of him” He says the last part sarcastically with a roll of those bright eyes.

“Your master is Satan.” Aziraphale repeats. “That makes you…” he cannot finish the logical conclusion to that sentence. 

“NOT an angel.” His companion spits with obvious scorn. “A demon.” He insists on saying, even though he can see that each word is a blow to the gentle artist. “Oh yeah. You got a helluva deal.” He gestures down his long thin body. “Traded your immortal soul for the dubious honor of spending some quality time with a demon. Still think the commission is cheap?” 

Aziraphale feels like he might throw up. He is trembling all the way to his fingertips and trying to keep himself from screaming. “Who are you? What is your name?” He manages to whisper.

“If it makes you feel any better. You aren’t the first one to be tempted. I’m the serpent. The first temptation. My name is Crowley.” He illustrates his point by flickering a forked tongue between the white flash of his teeth. “You didn’t have a chance.” He reaches to comfort Aziraphale with a touch on his shoulder, which the sculptor cringes away from. 

“Why? Why did you do this?” Aziraphale finds himself asking with rising panic.

“Oh, you think Hell is just full of choices for the minions of evil? I was assigned. Mucking about here on earth isn’t my idea of a party. Trust me.” He scoffs and flicks his golden eyes away from Aziraphale.

The terror has finally hit the boiling point and Aziraphale cannot stand another moment. “Get. Out.” he whispers. 

“Aziraphale.” Crowley turns as if he will speak some more.

The artist knows that if the demon says another sarcastic sly hateful word he will start to scream and he won’t stop until his throat is torn. “OUT.” He manages in a louder, if still shaken, voice. “GET OUT. Foul fiend.” He stands on weak legs and swallows back the giant knot in his throat. “You are not welcome here, demon. I won’t have your kind here.” The anger at his situation has steadied his voice and pale vibrant fury is blazing in his blue eyes.

Those great golden eyes widen with shock and that lovely face freezes as if he has been slapped. Two blinks and the expression is wiped clear from his face. “Aziraphale. We need to figure out a way to stop your commission.” He says without a single note of inflection or feeling in his voice.

“OUT. I said. Get out of my house.” There is a tremble at the edge of his voice now, a watery thready note that hints at his distress.

“Allright.” Crowley scoffs and makes an indescribable noise of frustration. “Have a nice doomsday.” He quips before snapping his fingers and disappearing 

Aziraphale allows himself to crumple to the floor in utter despair. What had he done? A demon? With a snake tongue and eyes and all that sarcastic tint to his voice. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. His angel was supposed to be gentle and tender. He was supposed to glide across the room and sweep Aziraphale up into his wings with that longed for touch. Not snap and growl and demand. It was all wrong! “You are not the first” keeps echoing in his mind and he wonders how very stupid and gullible he had been. To think that some deep wondrous connection had existed between them. He was a fool. There are probably throngs of weak desperate men who fell for that perfect beauty. A temptation demon. 

Aziraphale cries. For a long time. He cries until he cannot cry any more. And still his mind torments him with the forever imprinted image of Crowley’s face. He had touched every line of it. Traced his hands over every square inch of that long lithe body and found not a single flaw in him. His unhelpful stupid mind keeps fabricating ludicrous speculations until his circling thoughts feel like they might drive him mad. 

One thought that insists upon dogging him is the notion that this "Crowley" might call himself a demon but had not acted as bad as his first shocked impression might suggest. Crowley had mentioned trying to foil his master’s plan. Crowley had even expressed that they should work on that together. He had seemed frustrated that the plan had worked. He had immediately focused on the plan when instead he could have just let Aziraphale make the gate without mentioning a single thing. He had intervened. He had explained the situation. He had not lied. Not once. Not even when it would have flattered him and landed Aziraphale in his arms. 

What kind of demon does that?

Ok. Two things come to mind. One, Crowley cares about humanity and doesn’t want a gate to hell opening right here on earth. Or two, Crowley cares about Aziraphale and doesn’t want the deal for his soul to happen. Or three. Three. No. He can’t come up with any other possible explanations. 

So. He is a demon. But he is capable of caring about humanity or Aziraphale. Or both. And he is willing to act on that caring. By immediately addressing what he can. By working on a plan. 

Well. He isn’t the soft tender compassionate lover that Aziraphale had summoned from his imagination. But. Would he even like a lover so similar to himself? Really? He is so tired of his own company. Wouldn’t it do him some good to have somebody entirely fresh and interesting? Isn’t it a little bit exciting even? 

Aziraphale had sculpted his dream man with his own hands. Traded his very soul for that man to come alive, and like the pompous dick he is, he immediately tossed him out the second that man wasn’t his made-to-order husband. 

He wonders how in the world he will find his ang-Crowley again. The demon didn’t have anywhere to go!

Still worrying at this gordian knot he is entangled in, he falls asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

He should have known, the instant he reaches the realm of dreams, the demon is there. Pacing. A streak of black against the whirl of stars. The instant he notices Aziraphale, he is stepping toward him with his arms open in pleading. “I’m sorry. I apologise. Whatever I said. I didn’t mean it.” He is so obviously in as much distress as Aziraphale is. Urgently begging with his itchy frantic words and his worried face for the artist to listen to his case. 

Aziraphale isn’t even able to answer before Crowley is once again asking to help him avoid the commission. It is clear this time around without the rising choke of terror overtaking his senses. Crowley is throwing himself into this mess full force, again. It is clear that the demon hasn’t considered what light in might throw upon his demonic reputation. 

Waiting for an opening in the conversation, Aziraphale is finally able to wedge in a question that halts Crowley in the middle of his adhament pleading. “Crowley, why do you want to help me at all?” He asks plainly.

The demon makes several attempts at speaking that don’t really turn out to be words, just inarticulate sounds. He searches Aziraphale's face for a moment before he steps forward and offers his hand. "It's better if I show you." He explains. "I can't in the waking world. But I think you can see it here." 

The sculptor takes the demon’s warm slender hand and feels the dream pulse around them. Suddenly a rainbow light explodes from his skin. A glorious stream of dancing and weaving glow is curving out into the void. “What is that?” Aziraphale asks in amazement. 

“You have always called me angel.” The demon says and Aziraphale feels humiliation lighting the tops of his ears on fire. “But this is your soul. Your aura. It is so bright it almost hurts. Here in the dream it is even toned down by your sleeping mind. It is even more vibrant in the waking world. To even have a soul like this, to draw all of the world into the intersection of your life as you do, you have angel lineage in your blood. There is the twin flame of mortal and immortal life all twisting there. It is one of the most powerful of the souls my master could set into his influence. That is why he has pursued you in this way.” 

Crowley tips his head back to look up at the sprawling scatter of stars. “I can imagine that it was hard to feel your celestial harmony chiming so far away from the choir of your angelic family. Did you grow up feeling that you must be already old? Feeling out of step and lacking some of the pieces that everyone finds so easy?”

Aziraphale can only nod and gaze wide eyed at the pulsing shimmer of his soul. 

“You are at most, only two generations from the host in lineage. Why have the angels left you here alone? They know the danger of leaving such a soul unprotected. Surely, they wouldn’t risk such an asset being turned to the hands of hell.” Crowley sounds completely astounded by the lack of care or protection. 

Aziraphale doesn’t have a single answer. Why had he always been singularly abandoned? This whole time he had figured he was just an odd duck and not the most social of creatures. To know that there is some stamp of immortality that rings in his soul and marks him inhuman makes him feel even more alone than ever. What immortal being had created an entire line of graced humanity and then just tossed it out with the recycling? It doesn’t sound very angelic to him. It sounds cruel. 

“I need a drink.” Aziraphale mutters as the demon finally releases his fingers. When his hands slide free from Crowley’s grasp, he wakes to his own world and the cold comfort of reality. 

When he finally stumbles into the studio only marginally refreshed from his dream wrecked slumber, there is a demon sprawled on the fainting couch. Aziraphale had the couch installed for the occasion of models when he needs a figure study. None of them had managed to make that couch look as tempting as it does right now. He is so fucking beautiful that it makes the artists fingers twitch with the urge to capture it. He looks boneless and lazy and lifts a bottle of wine in one loose fist. “Brought the alcohol, angel.” he says with a small smirk. 

Once again, the embarrassment at that nickname has Aziraphale not quite sure how to handle himself and the demon obviously loves it. The smirk broadens to a full grin and a snap of the demon’s fingers has him offering a full glass to the artist. Aziraphale knows how nicknames work. If he fights Crowley about it, it will only goad him into digging his heels on the moniker. He will simply have to endure and hope the golden eyed menace forgets about it. He gets the immediate impression that Crowley doesn’t forget anything. 

There is nothing for it, so they drink. The demon insists he cannot possibly get very drunk, but this is contradicted by the way he weaves and leans around the room like he is strolling the deck of a particularly unsteady ship.

The buzzy convocation has rewarded them with the next step at least. Crowley knows a witch. A witch with an actual book of prophecy. Who knows? There might be some help from that direction.


	5. Chapter 5

Anathema peers into the heavy tome with a little frown wrinkling her brow. Aziraphale feels the slightest bit like the awkward boyfriend that has been introduced to his lover’s family. They sit crammed onto a floral chintz covered loveseat that should reasonably seat two if Crowley had any notion for how chairs work. Aziraphale nudges Crowley’s thigh with his knee in reproach and only gets a cheeky grin in response. Aziraphale glares at the demon. 

Before they can devolve into a juvenile shoving match, the witch pops her head up and smirks at them both. It catches their attention and they both straighten like chastened school boys. “Crowley.” she begins while slowly removing the delicate frames of her glasses from behind her ears. “I’m afraid we have to talk about your fall.” 

The mood in the room instantly plummets. Crowley has suddenly developed an intense interest in his nails. “What about it.” He says stiffly. It is obviously a tender wound. 

“Did you fall? Do you remember falling?” She asks pointedly.

“What kind of question is that? Pool of boiling lava! Not likely to forget that!” Crowley has angrily shot to his feet and his eyes are blazing gold with fury. The snarling vehemence of his tone makes it quite clear he won’t be having this line of inquiry much longer. 

“Ok. Then after that. Did you swear fealty to your master? To Lord Lucifer? Did you bind yourself? Swear any oath?” She presses with obvious intention in her tone.

“Well. Nothing so formal as that. We were mates. Just. Asking questions” Crowley gestures around the room in some formless description. “Made some good points is all. Didn’t think it was anything until. Whoop! There I was falling.” The last is said in a sort of raw hurting rasp and Aziraphale wants to comfort Crowley. 

“I thought something like that.” Anathema nods. “Crowley. You shouldn’t be able to be here at all. You shouldn't have the power or freedom to go against your master’s will in this way at all. You are directly undermining his work here. I don’t think you are bound to him. Not in the metaphysical sense.” She explains.

Crowley looks like he has been hit in the head with a bat. “What? B-but. I fell!” He exclaims and his hands are shaking. He sinks back onto the couch and Aziraphale instinctively reaches for those trembling fingers. 

“Well. You fell. But, I think you are a free agent, Crowley.” Anathema says with certainty. She then turns her attention to Aziraphale. “Now. Aziraphale. They want you to craft a gate. And that gate made with your own intentions under the instruction of Lucifer will latch onto your soul and bind it and use it as a power source to open the portal. Right?”

The artist feels his own panicking heart flutter with terror. “Yes.” 

“Well. We cannot stop the commission. You will have to build the gate. It was an agreement and Lucifer did provide his payment for the deal. As far as metaphysical contracts go, this one is done." She states it softly as if apologizing for the impact of her words.

Aziraphale feels the stress mounting as his hands grip tightly around Crowley's captured fingers.

"But." She says thoughtfully. "It will only work if your soul isn’t already bound. To some other eternal force. Some other immortal purpose.” She says this with emphasis on the immortal part. They both just stare back with furrowed brows. She looks back at them with her own brows slowly raising as if they should be catching on to something. Nope. They still blink at her cluelessly. She shakes her head in disbelief. “I found the prophecy. Here. Look.” She turns the massive book toward them. 

when sculptor sets the claw from hell  
What frees them both is wedding bell

Crowley makes some disbelieving croaking noise as they both reel at the dawning revelation. 

“Will that work?” Aziraphale says shakily. 

“If your soul is already bound with a vow to an immortal, it can’t be used to power anything else. It can’t be bound to any other metaphysical link. And Crowley, it will be a much weaker link for you. You will only be making a vow to a mortal. But with the case of his soul being at least partly genetically linked to angels, it might be more powerful than we think. You are a free agent, but your master is probably well on the way to figuring out that they forgot one little technicality when it comes to your loyalty. I don’t imagine that you going absent with his valuable asset is going to go unnoticed. When he does figure it out, he isn’t going to be pleased. Having some protection of the oath might strengthen you both. That soul could open a hell gate. It could probably give you the top up you need to be at least a duke of your realm. It might give Lucifer pause. You might get away with it.” 

A tense silence descends on them both as they make their farewells and start the long trek back into the city. Aziraphale had insisted they take transit this time instead of the harrowing experience of having a demon transport them with a click of his fingers. He has managed to be quite content doing things the human way thus far and he isn’t sure his head is done spinning from the last trip. 

“Would you like to go to mine?” Crowley asks and Aziraphale stares up at him dumbfounded. 

“You have a place here?” He exclaims

“Of course I do.” The demon shrugs.

Aziraphale pokes him in the shoulder. “I thought you said you hated it here!”

“Well---” the demon prevaricates. “I just said mucking about here isn’t a party.” He shrugs and points his eyes elsewhere as if to avoid the incriminating blaze of Aziraphale’s disbelieving stare. “Do I look like I’m having a party?” he asks while turning to swagger backward down the walkway.

They are seated next to each other, this time on a public bus. Once again, Crowley is abusing whatever customs humanity has crafted regarding the treatment of seats. Aziraphale is convinced it is on purpose because he had reacted so strongly to being crowded before. In revenge for this pettiness, he reaches out and links their hands. Immediately he can feel Crowley trying not to squirm and fidget and he turns his face toward the window with a smile at the passing blur of the city. 

The demon introduces him to the ridiculously expensive bit of brutalism he calls a flat and to an army of shivering houseplants before they dare to broach the heavy topic that has followed them all the way here. “Why a Claw?” Crowley asks, seemingly out of nowhere as he wrestles with a wine cork. “Snakes don’t have claws.” 

“Right. Snake in the garden” Aziraphale muses as he watches the demon continue to fiddle with the bottle when he could just snap and have it open. It is sort of adorable. 

“A claw, La Gradina, is a sculpting tool, Crowley. It’s clever. Lucifer thought you were the tool that was going use. A tool to extract something of value to himself.” 

“Right. Glorious tool.” Crowley scoffs.

“Just like I was going to extract something of value to myself as well, Crowley. My motives for selling my own soul were shallow and ridiculous.” Aziraphale confesses.

“You aren’t just a tool, Crowley. Something to leverage my own loneliness with. You never were. Lucifer made that mistake and I almost did the same. You aren’t a means to an end. That is shallow and wrong. I think the prophecy was pointing that out to me specifically. I think it was a message.”

Aziraphale finds a corner of the black leather sofa to sink into with his over poured glass of wine. “I need to apologise.” He says with his brows drawn in thought. “I got myself into this mess and you have done nothing but try to help. The second you turned out to be different than what I expected, I wasn’t my best. I made snap judgements about your character. I let some fantasy of what you might be like to color my opinion.” The artist slumps in his seat with the weight of his own bad judgement and terrible choices.

“Hang on angel, before you begin the self flagellation, you had an actual demon pop out of a living statue in your workshop. I think you are allowed to be wrong about a few things. You are allowed to panic if the literal devil is out to get you. You were expecting an angel and you got stuck with me.” Crowley shakes his head and drops onto the ottoman that faces the leather couch. The very obvious disgust in his tone when he refers to himself snaps Aziraphale's eyes up to narrow at the demon.

Well, this wouldn't do at all. He wasn't going to stand for Crowley imagining that he has been anything short of amazing throughout this entire situation. 

"Stop that." The artist insists and obviously his reaction had been surprising. Leaning forward to make his point, Aziraphale meets Crowley's eyes and continues. "If you had gone along with my silly nonsense, played some romantic role, swept me off my feet like some ridiculous fairy tale, I would be setting my soul into a hell gate right now. You are far better than I deserved and that is the last time I will hear you say otherwise, Crowley." 

The demon has frozen quite still at the sincere praise and simply gapes at Aziraphale. His eyes look so caught off guard. He would never show them looking so wide and surprised on purpose. 

The sculptor has touched this face so many thousands of times over the last few months. Aziraphale simply forgets that he should check the impulse to trace that expression. His fingertips are already landing against the arch of Crowley's cheekbone before the shock of warm living skin surprises him into remembering. It is too late to reverse his mistake because the demon has lifted his own hand and pinned that touch in place. "You are kinder than any angel has been to me." Aziraphale murmurs.

Those eyes finally shift and narrow at that last statement. As if that sentiment had been over the line. “I’m not kind.” Crowley says. “I’m a demon.” There is a threat he intends there. A fierce disgust underlining his rejection of the premise. It makes something fond and amused rise up inside Aziraphale’s chest. His face must be showing it because it seems to piss off the demon more. His hiss of outrage at having soft looks pointed at him is mashed between their lips as the demon surges forward and tries to make some point with sheer stubborn force. His kiss is mostly teeth and frustration. He cuts off any chance of the contact turning intimate by tightening his grip on Aziraphale’s hand and shoving it back. As if it were the artist's fault and not his own confusing emotions driving him. “I’m. Not. Kind.” he reiterates against Aziraphale’s mouth as if the matter has just been settled by his wild behavior. He seems quite sure that he has been offensive enough to head off any more of those adoring glances. 

He underestimates just exactly how fond Aziraphale really is. Lips still tingling with the sting of teeth against them, the sculptor just continues looking at Crowley like he is the tastiest morsel on the plate. “I’m not quite sure I understand, Crowley.” He says with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I think you are going to have to show me again.” 

That seems to completely throw the demon right off course, because he only mumbles a few inscrutable words that sound a little bit like. “Whu, Ehhh, Augghhh.” before he gives up on the idea of saying anything coherent and looks anywhere but at the artist. His freckles seem to be floating off his face. Is that a blush? 

The silence does seem to reach some tense climax and Aziraphale finally does take some mercy on the poor demon by changing the subject. “So. This notion.” (he so carefully hedges around the word marriage) “Do you think it will work?” 

Crowley does relax with relief at the subject change. “It depends on us, really.” He responds after considering the question for a moment.

“On us?” Aziraphale sinks back into the leather couch again and takes a sip of his wine. “What do you mean?” 

Crowley shakes his shoulders as if he is adjusting the invisible weight of his wings. “Ninety percent of what works in the metaphysical plane, “the spheres”, whatever you want to call it, happens because of intention.” 

When he doesn’t expound further, Aziraphale presses. “What does that mean for us?” 

Crowley’s face looks dead serious and completely somber as he stares directly at the artist. “It is...” He stops as if his throat might not work before trying again. “You have to mean it, angel.” It takes a long moment of staring before Crowley manages to say more. “We cannot play a trick or some game that will fake out a soul bond. It doesn’t work unless you make it with the actual intention of making that connection for life. For real.” The demon scrunches his brow and scrubs his hand down his face. “There are a few more bonds that could secure your soul. If you.” He stops again for a second. “If you can’t.” He looks actually pained to bring them up. 

“Like what?” Aziraphale is almost afraid to ask.

“Well, you don’t happen to know any other immortals do you?” The demon asks with a wry look on his face. 

The artist laughs. “No. afraid not. I don’t have any other immortal friends.” 

Crowley smiles and his face is transformed by it. Again, Aziraphale is struck by his beauty. He isn’t sure he is going to have a day anytime soon that he doesn’t notice it. 

“Are you religious in any particular way?” the demon inquires.

“Oh. No. Afraid western religions aren’t too keen on my particular. Well. My proclivities.” He says as if he is quoting something that was actually said to him. “At least, they weren’t when I was young enough to be seeking that sort of religious encounter.”

“Ah. Well. That rules out devoting your soul to being a monk or a priest.” 

Aziraphale only grimaces at the thought and shakes his head. 

“You aren’t by any chance, really into weapons and patriotism?” 

The sculptor only blinks at him. 

“I’ll take that as a no. So you cannot swear your soul to the cause of a battle or patriotic service or a crusade.” 

“What are the chances that you have a medical degree stashed somewhere?” 

“None”

“So you cannot devote your life to the work of healing. There are only two more that I can think of. They might actually work. In your case.” 

The artist takes a sip of wine and gestures for Crowley to expound.

“Well. If you are extremely concerned about the health of your planet, you could directly link your soul to it’s well being. Linking to a planet means a lifetime of conservation activism and frustration. But it would save your soul from the gate.” 

“Allright. Noted. And what is the last?” 

“You could devote your life to your art.” Crowley’s eyes are absolutely piercing as he stares at Aziraphale. “It would work. You have the talent and the focus for it. It would bind your soul to your muse. But, angel, I have to warn you. It is dangerous. A muse is not as close to this plane as a demon or angel is. A muse can misunderstand a soul link. They can twist and push a soul further than it should go.” He spreads his hands out toward Aziraphale in expressive gestures as if he wants to impress the vital importance of his words. “I swear I am not telling you that just because I want…” He snaps his mouth around the end of that statement but his face says it for him. “Artists who have chosen that route have gone mad. More than once. It isn’t safe. Well. It is safer than a hell gate. Allright? But it isn’t very safe.” 

“Ok.” Aziraphale sets his empty wine glass aside. “Crowley, you keep talking about me. What about you? What are your options?” 

“I have already decided.” Crowley says while dodging any interrogation by focusing on his wine with sudden interest. 

“What?!” The artist practically shouts in surprise. “You have already decided.” He repeats back to Crowley as if to make the statement suddenly make sense. “Decided to vow yourself into permanent real committed marriage to me.” He intentionally says it as bold as brass.

Crowley gasps a little bit at the way it sounds just laid out like that. “Yup.” He says with an extremely practiced casual tone. 

“Why in hell have you been giving me all these options then?” Aziraphale splutters.

“Angel. You deserve to know all your options. Really.” Crowley states with the sound of somebody being totally rational and reasoned. 

“Are you telling me” Aziraphale leans forward “Because I think this is what I am hearing” He continues with a horrified tone. “That you would vow yourself in devotion til death do us part and so on. And then let me FUCK OFF to save the bloody planet or paint flowers or go on a fucking crusade?!” 

The only answer the artist gets to his tirade is silence. Crowley looks legitimately shocked at how upset Aziraphale is at the very idea of a one sided commitment like that.

“I won’t let you.” the artist says and sets his jaw stubbornly. “You are infinitely precious. Stupidly beautiful. And recklessly selfless.” He states in a tone that will brook no disagreement.

Crowley begins to don his own growling face at the flood of compliments.

“Oh don’t you start.” Aziraphale snaps. “And don’t think you can bite or kiss me to distract either.” He retorts, much to Crowley’s chagrin. “Wily devil.” He tacks on, in the admiring tones of paying a compliment. “You are throwing yourself at my mercy and expecting me to just wander off. It's insulting! I won’t let you.” He says again, just in case the demon hadn’t heard him the first time. “We are getting married and that is that.” He says with the ring of finality so sure that Crowley can already feel the first link of Aziraphale’s bond snapping into place.


	6. Chapter 6

It turns out that there aren't any sort of guidelines for how one should dress to bind your soul to a demon for eternity. Aziraphale had never really fussed over fashion or appearance before. For some reason though, on the day of his nuptials, he vacillates between one waistcoat and the next. He even considers pommade for his incorrigible fluff of white blonde hair. He is so distracted and out of sorts that he is almost late and no amount of pommade could have rescued his sweating nervous wrinkled self. 

Crowley of course, looks like living sex and cool as a cucumber. At least until they are made to sit in the lobby and wait their turn. Then Crowley turns into a live wire. He jitters and fidgets and squirms until Aziraphale feels like he might scream. Finally, he can’t take it any more and reaches out to reel the demon back into the seat with a hand on his elbow. “You don’t have to do this. You seem worried. If you don’t think it will work you can still just turn me over. It is my fault this all happened. No reason to tangle yourself up in it any more than you already are.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, angel. I am not worried about it working.” He snaps in frustration before resuming his restless pacing.

“What is it then?” Aziraphale begs while once again trying to encourage Crowley to sit. He does, but it is more a collapsing into the seat and continuing to vibrate with tension.

“Aziraphale. I didn’t mention something.” He finally casts out into the room with a grimace.

The sculptor can feel his heart jump with terror. “What? And you thought that NOW would be a good time, Crowley? We are literally TEN MINUTES. From the altar!”

“Well, technically there isn’t an altar. Good thing since I’m a de-AHHHH” He shouts as Azriphale reaches out and firmly grasps his ear. 

Aziraphale doesn’t release his hold and drags Crowley into the bathroom, which is mercifully empty. He still scream-whispers at the yowling demon on the off chance of somebody overhearing their conversation. “What did you forget to mention!?” 

Crowley rubs his ear “It’s not THAT big a deal. OWWW. Why does that HURT so bad?” 

Aziraphale reaches as if to grab his ear again, and Crowley ducks and catches his wrist. “Seriously, angel. AH. I think you almost ripped it off. Can you rip it off like that? These bodies, how do you handle it? Ughh.”

“Crowley, if you don’t tell me right now. I swear.” He threatens.

The demon takes a deep breath as if fortifying himself. “Well. I was an angel. And sort of made to serve. Blah blah. Yadda…So then I fell. And still am sorta wired for all that. For a dominion. Ok. I am making this complicated.” He rubs his face as if it will help him concentrate.

“Ok. so a choir of angels is given a scope of work. Like a purpose. And all of that fell under the Will of Heaven. You know. ALL CAPS. Like, a reason to exist. And then after the fall. Well, the dominion was hell. And the WILL and direction sort of kept all the little demon-ey bits together. Kept the wiring still working. Well. For most of us. Some just went full tilt boogey and lost themselves. But that. It's another matter.” 

His face takes on a stressed intensity and his slender fingers grip the edges of Aziraphale’s coat. “If we do this. It will change things. I had a Master. And that was because in my mind, my intention, it was so. Realising I have never sworn such a thing, undoes it. Makes it not so. And if I make this vow. Well. You will be replacing that purpose. You will be my Master. My entire scope of work and purpose will be directed by what your intention would do with it.” 

Aziraphale feels the blood drain from his face. “What? And you thought the time to mention that is right now?!” 

Crowley only blinks at him.

“Crowley. You can’t do this. We can’t do this. I am a total stranger. You don’t know anything about my intentions. I have no idea what I am doing! Your Master! You must be joking! We can’t do this!” The panic in Aziraphale mounts until this time it is Crowley anchoring him.

“Angel, I have seen your soul. I’m not worried about your intentions.” 

That shuts him up. He only stares at Crowley in deep disbelief. For the first time, he notices that the demon is wearing dark sunglasses to cover his eyes. It suits him. Aziraphale must have been more nervous than he realised. 

“I am worried about my ears though.” the demon jokes in a wry tone. The tiniest tic at the edge of his lips is the only hint of his amusement. 

The artist glares in retaliation for the joke in the middle of this absolutely terrifying conversation. Crowley seems to be feeling better though. His shoulders are once again relaxed and his long fingers reach for Aziraphale’s hand. When had they gotten so comfortable holding hands? Aziraphale can still feel his panic running unabated, but seeing the demon regain his composure has helped a little. “You are insane, Crowley.” He insists. “I could turn into a power hungry megalomaniac.” 

Crowley turns toward the exit of the bathroom and grabs the door handle. “Mmm Angel, that sounds like fun! Let's do that.” He yanks the door open and tugs the artist along with determined strides back to their seat. 

“This isn’t a joke!” Aziraphale complains as they check the screen for their number. 

Crowley turns toward him and captures his other hand. “Angel. Do you WANT to be a power hungry megalomaniac?” 

“Well. No.” Aziraphale concedes.

“Then we have nothing to worry about. It’s going to be fine.” Crowley says and squeezes his hands for emphasis.

“You can’t just know that Crowley. This is serious.” Aziraphale argues one last time.

“I can know that, Aziraphale, because I just saw your reaction to the news. It told me absolutely everything I needed to know.” the demon brushes his thumb over the thin skin of his wrists.

“What am I going to do with you? Insane reckless demon.” the sculptor chides.

“Absolutely anything you want to do with me, apparently.” Crowley replies with a soft sly smile as he lifts one wrist to his lips and breathes across the pulse there. 

Aziraphale gasps at the sudden wave of intense arousal that slaps a blush across his face. He is suddenly grateful for the reflective lenses of the shades that hide those eyes. Reluctantly, he tugs his hand away and tries to breathe slowly and tame his pounding heart. “Stop that!” He scolds and straightens his waistcoat as if he could put his dignity back on with the motion.

“Temptation demon. Remember?” Crowley grins without a shred of remorse.

“As if you would let me forget it!” the artist complains.

The demon is still laughing when their number is called.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a mention of a spider in this chapter! Arachnophobes beware!

The wedding goes off without a hitch. Like most government hurdles, the only surprise to the process is how no one in the room seems to notice that an infernal contract is being made right in their midst. Aziraphale has the giddy notion that perhaps they happen all the time, people lining up in some grey carpeted room holding a ticket number that will consign them to some eternal sort of force. He feels like the room should be somehow richer for the experience. The building should be soaked with some residue of all the promises made within. Made sacred by the whisper weight of hope. He also expects some sort of thing to happen the moment they both have turned the paper toward the clerk and paid the fee. Or maybe when he had made his promise to the court. But there were no beaming lights from above, no rumbles of the earth or shattering of glass. Just the cool slip of Crowley’s hand touching his. The demon smirks as the justice invites them to kiss, as if he is amused by the entire surreal feeling of the moment. His lips are cool and delicate and are gone before Aziraphale can even feel the kiss. Twice now he has had Crowley’s lips planted on his and neither kiss had been the least bit satisfying. 

When Crowley swings Aziraphale back home in the passenger seat of the most gorgeous and ridiculous antique car he has ever laid his eyes on, a strange sort of silence has descended on them both. None of it feels real. Somehow it is like being in the eye of a storm, knowing the wind is coming but seeing nothing but blue skies. The demon swings into an illegal parking zone and they sit in silence for a long moment.

“You will need to make the gate soon.” Crowley says in a quiet tone that implies he doesn’t wish to break the peace of the moment.

“Yes, I don’t suppose he is awfully patient.” Aziraphale replies with a nervous push of his palms over his thighs.

Crowley snorts at that and shakes his head. “No. He isn’t.”

Aziraphale reaches for the latch and the door and moves to exit the car. Before he can egress, Crowley has suddenly darted his fingertips out to catch his other hand. Surprised, Aziraphale halts his motion and turns back toward the demon. 

“Don’t make the gate without me there, angel. Call me when you get started. Or if he comes there. Or if you even feel funny. Call me.”

Aziraphale agrees with a small nod. “Alright. Is there some, incantation? Some words I should say to call you?”

Instantly, Crowley’s face goes very sober. “Ah. Right. I should tell you how that works, eh?” 

Aziraphale nods and wiggles a little to settle himself in for learning something new.

Crowley spreads his hands to illustrate his words. “You go into your workshop, and there on the round glass table next to the pile of fake flowers there is this little square thing called a cell phone. It might be hard to identify since I know for a fact that you picked it up with clay hands and said all sorts of very non angelic words the last time you had it. I know the notion of actually using it is totally new to you. But you can call people on it.” His serious explanation melts into a grin of sheer joy as Aziraphale catches on that the wicked fiend is teasing him. 

The artist glares and reaches over to smack Crowley’s arm, his face outraged and flushing with embarrassment. “You are a menace.” The insult seems to please the demon and he only beams at Aziraphale. 

This sparks an absolutely inspired idea. “Actually Crowley I really must tell you that today you were beautiful and kind and amazing and so very sweet.” The instant reversal of Crowley’s smile into a horrified blushing mess is perfection. His face screams betrayal and he makes a lot of flustered noises that don’t manage to sound much like words. It is Aziraphale’s turn to crow with happiness at this fortuitous twist of fate. Ha! 

It takes a minute but finally Crowley manages to scramble together some words. “Get out of my car!” he demands with a shooing gesture of his hands. There is the smallest hint of a smile that still lingers in the corners of his lips even as he hustles the laughing artist from the car. “Out. Out!”

Turning to push the door to a stop, Aziraphale can hear Crowley grumbling “Now who is the menace” half under his breath.

++++++++++

Aziraphale lifts the buffing tool from the face of the stone and feels his arms sag with exhaustion. He had done it. Finally. He can rest. Turning to face the man in the bone white suit, the artist nods and hands over the dinner plate sized carved granite. Each twining symbol on the face of the polished stone seems to squirm across the surface every time Aziraphale turns his eyes away from it. Just out of the corner of his eyes. This is it. The moment when they will know if his bond had worked. Everything in his future hinges on just this moment. Suddenly an enormous pressure wave slams into his chest. Aziraphale screams in terror as the twisting squeeze of his ribcage ratchets down with a sick crunch. An enormous fist has gripped something inside of him and is tearing it out by the root. Holding him helpless there and the meaty slop of his flesh gives a yielding squelch. 

He had forgotten! Forgotten to call Crowley! How could he forget? Frantically he searches for that lick of flame bright hair. Screams his name. Where are you? 

His wild rolling eyes blur and catch on a dangling black thread. No. It's not a thread. Black wiry tangles of stiff looking strands fray from the center of its mass. Rope? And then it moves in some unseen wind. Wait. No. There is no wind in this place. With horror, Aziraphale follows the black furred shape upward to see that it is accompanied by seven equally enormous legs. Yes. Legs. All attached to the fat chitinous body of a giant spider. And there. Crowley is there, shrouded in the sticky web. His limbs frozen in the pose of the statue. Implacable. Unreachable. 

Aziraphale screams. He is going to die like this. His soul is trapped inside the gate and Crowley will never be free again. He still strains to reach him. Cries and screams for the demon to wake and hear him. Struggles to somehow reach him. Help! Crowley help me!

++++++++++  
The artist screams himself awake. His heart thunders so hard that it aches and he is soaked with sweat. The terror still has him crying openly and shivering. When suddenly a hand reaches out in the dark, Aziraphale is convinced for half a second that it is the long black terrible legs of the spider and he screams again. Instead of the horrible creature though, a soothing shushing gentle voice spills from the owner of those agile fingers that are now stroking his arms in slow steady movements. “Hey. Alright angel. Shhhh. It’s ok. It was a dream.” Crowley smoothes one thumb over the tracks of tears on Aziraphale’s face.

The artist collapses into those long slender arms and he presses his face into Crowley’s naked shoulder and sobs with relief. It had only been a dream. He was safe. He had not crafted the gate yet. Crowley was not caught by an enormous spider. It was safe. His soft terrified wails have dissolved into wet hiccups and Crowley snaps a wide soft warm cloth into existence to mop the sweat and tears from his face. Slowly, his rational brain begins to come back online and he begins to withdraw from the sweet comfort of Crowley’s embrace. 

It suddenly occurs to Aziraphale that Crowley had not been there when he had gone to sleep. They had gone to seperate homes. “What are you doing here? How?” He asks while still wrestling with the muddy surreal feeling of the dream clinging to his psyche. 

The sliver of moonlight from the window is enough to trace the faintest edge of Crowley’s face in light. Just enough that the artist can see the relieved expression on the demon’s face turn into his usual sardonic smirk. “You tell me!” Crowley demands and tips his head. “You know angel, If you want me naked in your bed, you could just call me. On your cell phone. Remember? There isn’t any need to go around breaking several laws of physics and ripping me right out of my pajamas in the middle of the night.” 

Aziraphale gasps in shock as he realises that, indeed, Crowley is stark naked in his bed. “Wh--” he manages while his brain and body have a battle royale about how he should react to this situation. Crowley shifts and great black shadows arch and tremble in a long stretch. Wings. Crowley is naked in his bed with his wings out. And oh. Wrapped around the edge of his fingertips, long skeins of bloodbright hair. The demon is naked, wings out, and those hip length locks are tumbling over the pillow. “How?” he finally manages.

“I have no idea. You aren’t fully human and I haven’t ever met anyone in our situation. But from my end it felt like an emergency. Like you were dying. Like you needed help. Right then. I could feel it, and then, just a moment after the feeling, I was being smashed into the etheric plane like a baseball being smacked out of its sleeve and sent here. You peeled me right out of my clothes and everything. Ripped all of me out here too. Wings, hair.” Crowley stops for a moment, then lifts the blankets and surveys his body beneath. “Mmh… Yup. All present and accounted for.   
It piques Aziraphale’s interest and suddenly he wants to check out what Crowley is looking at. The impulse only lasts a moment, before he realises their situation and stops himself. Of course the demon doesn’t let him get away with it. “Filthy angel” He purrs. “Dragging me naked from my bed and asking for the whole show.” 

“Crowley!” Aziraphale protests while he feels his face flood with heat. 

“Alright. I’ll behave.” Crowley lifts his hands and snaps and soft black clothes slither over his skin. “There. See. I’m dressed. Although, I could leave my hair and wings out, angel. You keep staring at them. You brought them along for a reason I guess.” The demon tips his head back to expose the long stretch of his throat and the spill of hair slides over his shoulder. The lines of his face are perfect in the silvering moonlight. The fluttering stomp of Aziraphale’s pulse leaps until he is sure that Crowley can hear it kicking there behind his ribs.

“This is you behaving?” The artist chokes out while trying to resist the urge to somehow strangle the demon and kiss him at the same time. 

Crowley grins and wiggles his eyebrows in answer. “Allright, tell me what happened.” He asks in a merciful gesture of changing the subject. 

Aziraphale describes the dream. The crafting of the gate, the spider, the bone man. 

“Well, there is one good thing we can take from this experience.” Crowley says and cups the artist's hand. The motion is completely reflexive and he doesn’t seem to register that he is doing it. Something that Aziraphale is acutely aware of, especially when the demon begins to trace his knuckles with his thumb. “The wedding worked. At least a little. We are bound. No doubt of that.” 

“Why do you say that?” the sculptor asks while trying not to move his hand enough to draw attention to the steady soothing touches Crowley keeps pressing into his fingers. 

“No way could you pull a demon through the etheric plane and to your location without being linked. I would have said this morning that no demi-human could have done it. Only about half the demons could even accomplish this with a low level demon and only if the bond was hundreds of years old.” Crowley continues to process the information and has now joined his other hand to the first. “I am not a low level demon, Aziraphale.”

Somehow, the sculptor had adjusted to the nickname so much that Crowley saying his actual name sends a hot little thrill up his spine. He tries not to make the little noise that his body really wants to make and ignores the eager little twitch his cock gives in reply. 

They keep turning over the dream until it is settled that they can’t really know if it was a personal attack or just Aziraphale’s nerves that had conjured up this terrible nightmare. One thing they do agree on, is that they should stick together. The dream had dissolved with the appearance of Crowley and it was all they could go on for guidance on how to handle the coming days. 

“Welp. I guess I am moving in, angel.” Crowley says with finality. 

Aziraphale manages to hold back a soft whimper of desperation. His body is as taut as a plucked string with awareness of every beautiful moonlit inch of the demon.

He was going to have to do something about his wild imagination if he is going to be LIVING with a temptation demon.


End file.
